Separation Anxiety

One of the things children's ministry leaders have had to deal with on a consistent basis is what most people would call "separation anxiety." Almost weekly, there is a kid who is hesitant or outright defiant when faced with the realization that mommy and/or daddy is getting ready to leave them in the children's wing during our ministry time.

Did you know that if you have young kids, there are a number of ways you can help make this a "less" common occurrence?

"General Guidelines for Easing Separation Anxiety:

1. Develop a “good bye” ritual. Rituals can bring reassurance to your child and can be as simple as a kiss bye or a wave.
2. Leave without fanfare. Tell your child you are leaving and that you will be back soon, then go—don’t stall, just go!
3. Practice leaving your child. Leave your child with someone for a brief period at first to help him/her experience your leaving and returning.
4. Keep familiar “things” when possible and make new surroundings familiar to your child. When your child is away from home or a familiar surrounding, allow them to have a “lovey” or favorite blanket for comfort. Visit the unfamiliar location so your child can see where they may be going to be left with a caregiver.
5. Try not to give in. Always reassure your child that you will return and he/she will be just fine and will have fun—setting limits will help the adjustment to separation."

Source - LINK

Excited about the Bible?

Have you ever wondered how to get your kids excited about God's word? Here's a great list that might help. Although geared toward children's ministry volunteers, I think almost all of them apply to parents.

10 Ways to Get Kids Excited About Bible

I would agree wholeheartedly with #1. Unless you're excited about God's Word, the chances your children are excited about God's Word are significantly impacted!

Connecting with your kids...

Every parent wants to do it. Some are better at it than others. Here's a link to 10 helpful ideas of how you can connect more with your kids. I think a couple of these could easily turn into memorable moments. Enjoy!

10 Ideas for Connecting With Your Kids

What's Your Rhythm?

One of the most important, and yet least thought about, ideas within the family is "rhythm." Your family has one...every family has one...but what is yours?

Excerpt from Reggie Joiner - source

"If you were to analyze the rhythm at your house, you would soon discover that much of your family life consists of repeated patterns. As much as we resist that thought because we like to think of ourselves as free beings, we actually behave like creatures of habit. If you don’t believe that, take a different route home from work tomorrow, switch places at the dinner table, or change up the side of the bed you sleep on tonight.

That’s why we (try to) put newborns on a schedule as soon as possible. It’s why we tend to go to the same gas station when we’re home, because familiar is efficient. It’s why we keep a calendar, set up family nights, why TV shows lock into a time slot and stay there, why churches don’t randomly alter service times and dates (Hey … church this week is Thursday at 3 a.m.), why stores open and close on a schedule, and why we have alarm clocks. Our lives are largely programmed around a rhythm.

You have a ”normal” flow of conversation. As a family settles into a routine, much of the daily conversation can become transactional: Did you brush your teeth? Is your homework done? What’s for dinner? The after-school exchange can easily become, “What happened at school today?” “Nothing.” Rhythm can tilt us away from meaningful dialogue or lean us into it.

This is how rhythm establishes value. Things that become part of the daily rhythm are the things our families will come to believe are most important. Rhythm silently but significantly communicates value.

So what if you rethink your home’s weekly rhythm:

• What does it look like?
• Which nights do you tend to eat together?
• What do you do when you first get home from work?
• What is your nighttime routine to get ready for bed?
• What do you do every Saturday morning?
• How do you spend Sundays?

Discuss it as a family to see what you can discover about the rhythm of your home."

These are good questions to ponder...hope you will!

One year away...

Well, some of you may know...today is my birthday! If you know me well, you might know that today is my 29th birthday. That means, that I'm only a year away from the big 3-0!

So, how should I spend my last year before I'm "old"!

Any suggestions?

A Little Monday Fun...

Apparently, "Rock, Paper, Scissors" isn't a game of chance. There's a strategy to the whole thing. You better believe I'm putting this stuff into practice with the kids. I'm going to be so dominant!



Click picture for larger view

One Step at a Time...

So often, I meet and talk with parents who know they aren't quite being the spiritual leaders of their kids that they ought to be. They know that God has called them to be something more by His grace. What they often don't know is WHAT TO DO! Some parents even become discouraged, and think that they have to be some super-Christian-parent in order to make a difference in their child's life. But, here's the thing...you don't have to be super parent, you just have to take ONE step at a time in order to influence and raise your children to love God.

So, I've put together a list of a few things that might be "One Step" you could take this week.

• Spend fifteen minutes this week praying WITH your child
• Take one/all of your children for a walk and ask "what's the last thing you learned about God"?
  
• Go into each of your kid's room(s) while they are sleeping and pray that God would move mightily in their lives and ask God to use you to do that
• Find something pretty normal (a good meal, a sunset, a good conversation), and have a discussion about your appreciation for the "small" things that God does
• Read a passage of Scripture, and ask your kid what they think it's talking about
• Take home one of our "Cue Boxes" at the kids desk and use it at home.
  

There's all kinds of ways that you can take ONE step. Your ONE step may not be on my list. Your step may be something else.

But what would happen in your child's life, in your relationship with them, and their relationship to God, if you took ONE step this week?

We had them...we are them!

We all had parents who weren't even close to perfect...you're not even close to perfect either!

Here's a great article about why it's ok to not be perfect, and why you should point them towards our perfect Heavenly father. The link below is well worth your time.

Imperfect Parents

Forty-seven

I still can't get over it....all of 24 hours later, I can't shake the images out of my head.

Yesterday, at Firewheel Church, 47 people went through the baptismal waters. That's 47 people who stood up and said, "I'm a believer and follower of Jesus...that's who I am." Some of them were people who had been believers for quite a while, and were never baptized for some reason. Others were people who had trusted Christ in the last few weeks of our "Gospel" message series. Either way, it's still 47.

I don't think the people who were there will ever forget that day. I don't know that I will ever forget those moments. One of the reasons I love our church is that, so many people stayed almost an hour after service to celebrate with these new believers. Side note (in case you were wondering): apparently, an hour is about how long it takes to baptize 47 people.

What a day! Praise God!

My favorite Halloween ever...

I vividly remember my favorite Halloween ever. I was about 11 years old, and it was the first time that my Dad was going to let me and two of my friends go down our neighborhood streets by ourselves. Now, before you try and call my Dad and tell him that it wasn't a good idea, you've got to remember that this was still in those days where you could send kids out to play in the neighborhood by themselves (within certain parameters...which were always made abundantly clear by my Father).

So, back to the story. It's my favorite Halloween because my buddies and I had a great plan to maximize our candy intake. We talked for a week about the best way to map it out and what to do. All three of us arranged for two costumes (one of which would hide our faces). As soon as we could, that day, we put on our first costumes and RAN from house to house. After we had hit every house in our "allowed" area, we went behind my friends house (where we had stashed the extra costumes/masks) and changed. We emptied our buckets into plastic bags and went out to every house again. We even went as far as to "change" our voices so that any of the neighbors who might know us wouldn't recognize us.

Needless to say, I had so much candy, I was still eating it by the time Spring Break rolled around. Ah, those are the memories.


I tell that story for two reasons. The first, is that I've felt guilty for years for duping my neighbors into giving me double the amount of candy. I don't know if any of them caught on, but if they did, I guess they just applauded our ingenuity and never said anything.

The second reason is that I tell that story is because Halloween is one of those times where memories can be made for a kid. Everyone loves dressing up in something they're not, and every kid likes candy! Remember as you go out and about this weekend that memories are being made. Spend time with your kids, tell them about your favorite Halloween, let them draw a map of the neighborhood and follow their plan. There are all kinds of ways to make it an awesome night for your family!

Happy Trick or Treating!


P.S. - if you're one of those families that doesn't like Halloween and chooses not to celebrate it, I am already fully aware of the reasons you make that choice. All I can say is...is it really that bad to meet your neighbors and get free candy? There's a way to "redeem" everything... even things that can be used for evil...and use them for "God-type" purposes.

You're too busy...and so are your kids!

For years I've been trying to put my finger on something when it comes to the busy, suburban, American family. Well, luckily someone else is putting their finger on it for me.

I couldn't recommend this link any more.

Sabbath For Your Children

Read up and consider!

Are you creating apathy?

Apathy...there's a lot of it in our world today. If I'm honest, sometimes there's a lot of apathy in my own heart and life.

Despite a culture of apathy, I'm almost positive that there aren't too many of you that want your children to have an "apathetic" outlook toward the world...especially to the things of God. But as I look around the suburbs of Dallas, I see a whole bunch of spiritual apathy. There are some days that my heart aches for kids (especially teenagers) who have a major case of "spiritual apathy." Here's some ways you can create spiritual apathy in your kids (consider it the "don't do" list).


"5 Keys to Making Your Kids Apathetic About Faith:

1. Put academic pursuits above faith-building activities.
2. Chase the gold ball first and foremost.
3. Teach your kid that the dollar is almighty.
4. Refuse to acknowledge that the primary motivating force in kids’ lives is relationship.
5. Model apathy in your own life."

Here's the source link for a further breakdown of each key - Creating Spiritual Apathy

Hide it!

One of the very first verses of the Bible that I memorized as a kid was Psalm 119:11.

"I have hidden your word in my heart, that I might not sin against you."

At Firewheel, especially in the children's ministry, we are convinced that kids should begin to learn how to hide God's word in their heart. There are all kinds of benefits to that, and I could probably write multiple pages about the benefits of scripture memory. Instead of doing that, I figured I'd share a couple of links that talk about "easy" verses for kids to memorize.

10 Easy Bible Memory Verses

30 Easy Bible Memory Verses


How can you incorporate these at home? I really hope you'll consider that question.

Cue Box

One of the tools we try and put into parents hands is a thing called a "Cue Box." It's a really simple thing, but the goal is to give parents some tools that they can use throughout the week to "CUE" spiritual conversations. Everything in the box goes along with what your child is learning on Sunday mornings. There's a DVD, links to cool online material, and all kinds of other fun.

Here's a helpful video another children's pastor put together to show his church what's in a Cue Box.

Anatomy of a Cue Box with Dan and Liam from dan scott on Vimeo.

If you need yours, come and get it at the check in desk! It's a great tool!

"I don't want my kids to be happy"

What a provocative title? Even better is a mother's writings about how her desire for her kids is not their happiness, but something else.

Click below and find out what she's really after.


I Don't Want My Kids To Be Happy